Merry
by WonderPickle
Summary: Managing to get into the holiday spirit, everybody pitches in to decorate the Christmas tree. One-shot. Minor Quintis and Waige. Set during season four.


**I apologize if you don't celebrate Christmas, but I do, and I love it, so here's this.**

* * *

" _Sylvester_."

"C'mon, Paige, it looks sloppy if we don't make sure it's perfect."

Paige half grunted and half sighed. "I'm really glad you want to help with the tree this year, but you don't need to... _genius_ it up."

"Sloppy workmanship can come off as bad to any potential employers that waltz in here," Toby pointed out.

Cabe snapped the left hand off his gingerbread cookie from its body with his teeth. "Let us teach you geniuses how to do a Christmas tree."

Paige proudly gestured toward her son. "Ralph and I have done them for years."

Walter glanced awkwardly between his girlfriend and his teammates. "I'm...interested to learn," he said apprehensively.

Paige beamed at him.

Happy scrunched her nose. "Whose side are you on, Walt?"

"There's no _sides_ ," Paige chastised gently. "We all just wanna spread the Christmas cheer. This year, there's no case, no bad guys with guns, nobody to save-"

"No Tim," Walter mumbled.

Paige shot him a look, but continued commenting. "-and Cabe isn't a jailbird. We're all healthy and happy-there's a lot to celebrate. Plus, there's a baby on the way!"

"Don't rope my child into this," Happy scolded.

Ralph pressed on. "There are decorations for everybody."

Paige ruffled his hair. "Getting out of debt means extra money to spend on this kinda stuff. Good timing, too, everything from past years was a victim of your pumpkin cannon."

"My bad."

Walter plucked a small snowman ornament from the tabletop. The stomach was a circle of glass, with a picture of his own face scowling uncomfortably behind. It looked like he was trying to hold in a cry of pain, and whatever hurt him in the first place was the only way to have stilled him for a photo. Glancing at the table, Walter realized an ornament possessing everyone else's face stared back at him. "Uh, Paige?" he questioned, glitter falling into his palm.

"Cute photo, Walt," Toby quipped.

Paige rolled her eyes. "Zip it." Lowering her voice, she leaned closer to Walter. "This is what happens when you don't smile."

"Paige, when potential employers come looking for business, do you really want them to see this whackjob?" Sly nodded at the photo.

"I'm not a...whackjob," Walter defended. His brows furrowed, asking the question his mouth didn't. _What's a whackjob?_

"You look like you're having some serious bowel issues," Happy noted. Toby, Sly, and Cabe snickered in harmony.

Walter nearly retorted.

"Put it on a middle branch near the bottom, so it's still visible, just less likely to be seen," Ralph piped up.

Paige smiled. "Good idea, Ralph." Stepping to the tree, she looped the ornament's attached string around a sturdy branch. Needles dusted the floor as she moved it, adding to the group of ones already fallen.

"Mom, we forgot the tinsel!" Ralph chirped.

She shifted her line of sight. The silver tinsel glittered amongst its fellow tree adornments scattered along the top of the table. "Walter, would you like to help us?"

Walter grabbed the end closest to him. "May I ask, what is the purpose of this?"

"It gives the tree a little something," Paige clarified.

He continued inspecting the object. "Doesn't it already have enough somethings?"

" _Actually_ , tinsel's _original_ purpose was to mimic the effect of ice draping across the tree," Sylvester said. "Started in Germany around the early 1600s."

Happy raised a skeptical pair of eyebrows. "It's not doing such a good job."

" _Stop it_ ," Paige replied.

"We can celebrate without bringing a shedding stump into the garage," Happy responded. "Those freakin' needles are everywhere."

"Christmas is about _family_ and _love_ and _joy_." Paige shifted her eyes across each of their faces. "We're lucky to have each other, this is a time to celebrate that. Celebrate that we are loved, and that we love. Celebrate being together."

"Paige is right." Cabe nodded at her.

Happy broke the short lived seriousness. "Does that really require a big ass mess, though?"

Paige huffed, settling for a different tactic. "Okay. How many of you had a Christmas tree growing up?"

Cabe stood with nostalgic pride. "After my father passed, my mom took an hour driving out to the best place in the state. I brought Pop's saw, and got to cut it down myself. My siblings picked it out, though. I always packed it up on the rooftop before we headed home, too. Ma couldn't lift it."

"That's a great story, Cabe," Paige replied warmly. Like the way she always did after being emotionally touched, her lips stretched to her cheekbones. She turned to the others. "I know none of _you_ ring with happy tales of Christmas cheer."

Happy pressed her lips together. "They had a tree. But it was pathetic. I fixed the crappy lights one year and later some girl lit it on fire to set me up. Course, I was to blame. And wasn't allowed near it after that-no matter where I went. Rumor spread."

Sylvester continued without missing a beat. "My dad used to take me out with him every year to go cut it down. Needless to say, it...never turned out well, and it was just another thing widening the rift between us."

"I've already told you we spent most merry days at the tracks," Toby picked up. "Our tree was barely as big as Ralph-nobody ever paid much attention to it. Sometime years the 'rents even forgot."

Walter fiddled with the tinsel as the eyes turned on him, catching onto the rhythm shakily. "My mother and father invited the entirety of our extended family to our home. Everybody enjoyed the way my mother and Megan embellished the tree but...I couldn't see the beauty they did. Megan...was the only one who told me it was okay not to understand Christmas."

Ralph's addition sunk into the conversation like a sewing needle-piercing through the distant memories while simultaneously piecing the team together, to the whole in the present they were, not the scraps in the past. "Mom and I made the best of what we had. She didn't do a tree when she was a kid. She didn't get to celebrate much, but she always did with me…"

" _Ralph_ ," Paige cut him off.

The geniuses turned one by one. "Paige," Walter started, "did your father not celebrate Christmas?"

She looked at the floor, sighing. Her neck stiffened at the reminder of her childhood. "...No. Once my mom left-so did the tree. He still got me presents, we just didn't really do much other than that."

Sylvester winced, immediately heading to her. "Sorry, Paige. Just because we had rough Christmases doesn't mean you have to."

"We've long since accepted ours. Just another part of all our horrible upbringings. But you," Toby said, "your adolescence wasn't so bad. Only around the holidays, right?"

"Mom has always known Christmas is something to celebrate. Even when she didn't have much," Ralph added.

Happy took over, directing her attention across the room. "We'll help you with the tree, Paige."

Her shoulders sunk as she sighed again. "No, guys, I don't want you doing this out of pity."

"We're not," Sylvester declared. "We're doing it cause…"

"We love you," Cabe finished.

Walter scratched his head. "Agreed. I guess...we could all be a little more open-minded about Christmas. You were right, we can celebrate without interruptions this year."

"Yeah. "We've got a lot of stuff to be happy about," Sly said, shooting a gleeful look at Paige.

Cabe rubbed his hands together. "Then let's get cracking."

* * *

"Who knew you could even _make_ the mathematically perfect Christmas tree," Paige wondered aloud, staring at the symmetry of the ornaments and tinsel. All hanging on the same branches, they appeared as though they were level. But anyone who'd been participating in the struggle for the last few hours would've known they missed exactitude.

Courtesy of Happy, multi colored strings of lights paralleled one another, spiraling their way down the bark. Each photographed face stared into the distance, and Ralph's took center stage.

The team admired their work from a distance, leaning into various desks and chairs. Paige snuggled underneath Walter's arm.

"Well, had we _initially_ selected a different, more precise tree instead of simply trimming this one, it _would've_ been perfect," Walter countered.

Cabe shot him a look as he walked across the room. "Don't even start," he retorted.

Putting a hand on her shoulder, Toby said, "Gotta hand it to you, Paige, this is pretty sweet."

 _Jinx._

She shook her head against Walter. "This was a team effort, guys. We all pitched in."

Cabe hoisted Ralph up to position the golden star atop the tree's apex.

"It's not centered!" Sylvester cried, pointing.

"Quit your moaning," Cabe replied, keeping his eyes on Ralph.

"I think I got it," Ralph said as he moved the star over an inch. He stretched his arm.

"More to the left," Happy called advisedly.

Ralph started to move it again.

"Cabe, take a step back. Ralph will be able to see better that way," Walter instructed.

Then, in typical Scorpion fashion, it quickly blew up in their faces.

Cabe reached his foot too far behind him faster than Ralph anticipated. Still on Cabe's shoulders, Ralph jerked suddenly. Instinctively, he reached for the tree as an attempt to remain stable. The tree didn't support his action, though, instead tumbling to the ground.

Even if the team had enough time to react, there wasn't anything they could've done.

Paige's eyes widened.

"Holy _jingle balls_ ," Sylvester cursed.

* * *

The team did their best to salvage whatever didn't break. All of the photo ornaments did, save Toby's. Happy slipped it into her pocket while no one was paying attention.

The majority of the lights shattered, and they were another thing tossed in the trash.

Upon deciding most of it should be tossed, they redid the tree. Differently.

The tinsel pattern stayed the same. Paige grabbed spare candy canes she found lying around and allowed Ralph to designate their branches. Happy found spare nuts to slip alongside those, too, and they glistened under the reflection of the tinsel. Toby and Walter gathered pens, paperclips, and binder clips, attaching them in the open spaces. Cabe removed his tie, then looped it up high. When he finished, he chuckled at his work, and Ralph gave him a smile. And, much to Paige's surprise, Sylvester attached his Pin of Valor towards the center.

Their first purely mathematical, symmetrical, glorified tree failed. Not a bad thing, though, because afterwards, they all realized it had been too cold and still to feel like Christmas.

Seeing the unconventional tree made every single one of them know they were better off.

But they still had yet to recognize it wasn't the decorations on the tree that made it special. It was the joy, declaring it a symbol of Christmas, the tremendous love enveloping the people around it, the family sprinkling holiday magic throughout the garage. Because it didn't matter what was on it. It mattered who was with it. It mattered who was grateful for the tree-for Christmas-for everyone around them. It mattered who felt the best Christmas gift of all. Love.

Because the tree did not embody the spirit of Christmas. They did.


End file.
